Spend Matters最近几年接触过的几乎所有供应商管理系统(VMS)供应商都表示，分析和报告是他们与其他供应商的区别所在。然而，就绝对能力而言，Spend Matters认为，采购、人力资源和IT组织很少在自己的部署中从VMS分析中得到他们需要的东西。这可能是功能定位、内部技能集和意识的反映。
从历史上看，采购一直是最不善于分析和数据驱动的职业之一。考虑一下如何使用支出分析来理解公司层面的基本支出信息(例如，我买什么、从谁那里买、以什么价格买等等)，这种做法只是最近才变得普遍。许多第一代采购技术不是针对解决这类问题，而是针对过程自动化和决策支持(例如，电子采购，反向拍卖)的组合，或过程治理和交易效率(例如，电子采购，购买到支付系统)。由于缺乏对支出模式、供应商行为和内部合规性的真正洞察力，许多采购组织最终得到了他们所讨价还价的东西——对他们直接控制之外的购买活动的不完全和不充分的可见性。
幸运的是，近期花费分析和供应商管理解决方案的增加，包括添加嵌入式分析 - 包括报告发动机通常从SAP业务对象，Tibco Spotfire和Qliktech的第三方，帮助组织获得了更大的一般花费视图what they buy and specific trending over time (e.g., purchase price variance [PPV] from one reporting period to the next). Armed with this information, procurement executives and data analysts alike can begin to ask the types of questions that lead to enhanced savings and compliance (e.g., why is one location not buying off of a centrally negotiated agreement with a vendor they are already using?). While this signals a trend in the right data-driven spending direction, nearly all the information these technologies present in run-of-the-mill deployments is only partially sufficient for driving the level of insight necessary to effect change in complex and unique services categories such as contingent labor and legal spending.
谈到服务采购时，基本挑战是，而不是使用分析作为探索潜在无限数量的数据集和机会的手段，而且花费很重要的是，大多数VM部署依赖于不超过十几个或如此罐装reports to drive basic insights and reporting on a periodic (e.g., quarterly) basis. This Spend Matters Compass report explores two key (and often confusing!) services procurement subjects, analytics and benchmark data. For example: how do practitioners sort through vendor claims and prioritize how best to make decisions on how to use the capabilities? What is the difference between relying on standard reports, drilling into datasets or deploying contextual analytics? This paper also explores the challenge of arriving at accurate and truly usable benchmarks for services and people relative to goods and processes.
如果您对可操作和实际用例感兴趣，包括基本报告功能的类型，VMS提供商可以支持的查询和数据集以及更高级的分析策略和功能，这花费重要纸可以提供宝贵的视角。